and the ONN

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

by this count I believe Wisconsin wins again.

On February 23^rd, evil elfin princess Joanna Newsom released a 3-CD (7-LP, 187 minicassette) album Have One On Pee Me. I often find Newsom to be insufferably twee, but supposedly this thing is more palatable than her last few platters, so I’m going to listen to it all the way through in one sitting.  (Ed.: Actually, just the first disc.  I’m not superhuman)

With one caveat!  If I get bored or anxious, I get to switch over to Autechre until I’m ready to handle more.

1. Easy

(2:00) Wow, does that melody meander.  My favorite parts are where it gets kinda jazzy and Randy Newman-ish, but I’d rather listen to Randy Newman, even if it’s the Toy Story soundtrack.

2. Have One on Me

(0:30)What the fuck is it about her voice that drives me up the wall so much?  It’s not particularly nasal, and only occasionally quavery these days.  She does this weird half-yelling thing sometimes apropos of nothing in the lyrics, almost like she’s just trying to stay awake.  (I need to find a lyric sheet, because it sounds like she’s just listing words from Henry Darger’s brain glossary.  Is there a story here?  I feel like there might be.)

(3:00)What’s with the hoedown fiddle that pops up once in a while?  Okay, and now processional horns.  Obviously.

(6:00)Ugh, five more minutes of this?  Ugggggggh.  Just stick to the harp.  Stop slapping shit on top of a song that isn’t memorable in the first place.  She’s building a pretty golden box of arrangements to hold a song Van Dyke Parks wrote and forgot about when he was 17.

(6:45) Ooh!  Handclaps!   Okay, this shit’s getting good.  There’s a rhythm, and a discernible melody.  Keep it going, lady.  You can do it.

(7:15) Well, that ended abruptly, and for no discernible reason.

(9:00)Oh great, a chorus of Joannas.  If this is the choir in Limbo, Socrates is perpetually trying to slash his phantom wrists.  Sorry, buddy!  Bang some crying heathen babies together if you want to block it out.

(10:30)So, she mentioned both tarantulas and daddy longlegs (which, as a child, I adorably referred to as “Dandy Longlegs”) in the song.  Is this her tribute to the John Goodman classic Arachnophobia?

<Autechre break.  I get more coffee, and do a bathroom run.  My fingers are numb, for whatever reason, so I run them under hot water.  Come on, blood!  It’s okay, it’ll all be over soon.>

3. ’81

Alright, this is kinda pretty.  Presumably it’s going to go off the deep end sooner or later.

I wonder if my fundamental problem with Newsom is that she finds nature to be charming and welcoming, and I’m more on the Werner Herzog/Lars Von Trier side of things.  Nature wants to kill and eat us.  It does not want us to have garden parties and be frolicsome.  Again, a lyric sheet would help with this.  Maybe I’m missing the fascinating dark side here.

(3:30) Decent song… until that high note, at least.  Be thankful for reverb, Dearest Joanna.

4. Good Intentions Paving Company

This is the hit, right?  The single, I mean.

(0:30) Another chorus of Joannas!  Look, Green Gartside gets a pass for that shit, because his voice is an asset.   Newsom’s is a sticking point.  At least she wavers consistently.  Must be all that classical training.

(5:00) I wonder how much of Newsom’s fan base overlaps with Joni Mitchell’s.  Newsom has a bigger inclination to throw waaaaay too much into a given song, but the actual melodies of her stuff strike me the same way.  And their voices both drive me up the same wall.

<Autechre Break II.  I’m a half hour in, and this is fabulous.  I’m in a place this year where the hip hop genus of pop music just appeals to me more.  Yet, I still listen to Cocteau Twins on a regular basis.  And ABBA.

Oh that’s right, they both write pop songs competently.  Which Joanna Newsom used to do, at one point.  I think?)>

5. No Provenance

So “provenance,” huh?  Is that like providence?  Or is it, like, the state of wanting proof for something?  You know, like someone from Missouri.

<I look it up>

–noun

place or source of origin: The provenance of the ancient manuscript has never been determined.

Ooh, mysterious!  What has no place or source of origin?  GOD?  LOVE?  Barack Obama? (snap!)

This, too, is kinda pretty.  Here’s Newsom’s trick, as far as I can tell: send a song down a rabbit hole of drifting melodies and cluttered arrangements, then pull it back out with a simple, pretty motif.  Here, that motif is when she sings “In your arms.”  It almost feels like she’s grudgingly admitting what it takes to create an enjoyable pop song, but only long enough to trick someone into listening a bit longer.

(6:00) Really?  “Pretty Johnny Appleseed?”  How does anyone get away with that shit?

6. Baby Birch

Yes!  Give the notes some space!  You’ve got a fancy recording study with nice reverb boxes.  Put ‘em to use!  Why, in 2010, does everyone think “more is better” except dubstep producers and the XX?  (Yes, I understand Autechre pile stuff on to a ridiculous extent.  But they’re old hands at it.  And a beat always helps.)

This is the first winner, six songs in.  The contrasting guitar/harp/whatever part during the bridge (chorus?) is gorgeous, and thoughtful.  It serves a purpose.  MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE.

(5:45) I just noticed this is nine and a half minutes long.  I’m back to tentative approval.

(6:45) Alright, more hand claps!  Build it up!  Go!  Drive ‘er home!

(8:15) I’m half expecting a piccolo solo to break in and ruin things about now.

(8:30) Oh, wait, I’m sorry.  It’s a mandolin.  I was close, though.

Why do I feel like that disc should be punctuated with a gong?

Final ratio: 40 minutes of Autechre listened vs. 43 minutes of Newsom.  This is presumably a victory of some kind.  For me, and mankind.

Perestroika songspiel (Russia 2008). Our project deals with a key episode during perestroika in the Soviet Union. The action of the film unfolds on August 21, 1991, after the victory over the restorationist coup. On this day of unprecedented popular uplift it seemed that democracy had won a final victory in our country and that the people should and would be able to build a new, just society. How did our heroes see that society? This is the question we try to answer in our film.The film is structured like an ancient tragedy: its dramatis personae are divided into a chorus and a group of five heroes. Our heroes are key types generated by the perestroika era, each of them with a particular vision of his/her role in history: a democrat, a businessman, a revolutionary, a nationalist, and a feminist. They act and they dream. They analyze their actions, their place in society, and their vision of the country’s political path. The chorus is the incarnation of public opinion. It makes moral judgments on our heroes and it foresees their futures, as if it were gazing on the proceedings from the present day.

Puppetboy. (Sweden 2008). For more than a decade eccentric filmmaker Johannes Nyholm has worked on films featuring a little clay figure he calls “Puppetboy.” Many hours of animation have been completed, yet very little has been made available to the public. Following the artist behind the scenes we discover a very intimate relationship between him and his protagonist.

Via Lactea (France 2010). A journey into Iñaki Aizpitarte’s recipe.

Tuna tune (United States 2009). In Tokyo, at the Tsukiji market, selling tuna fish is an event every day. This film/documentary mixes painting, sculpture and comic opera. This is an enigmatic world.

Lost Monument (Greece 2009). Lost Monument takes upon a controversial monument, a 4 meter bronze statue of former American president Harry S. Truman…located in downtown Athens, Greece…Ever since its erection in 1963 as a commemoration to the Truman Doctrine, the monument has been a favorite target of citizens wishing to express their opposition to the very idea of placing a US president’s statue in the capital city of a country whose civil war was decided thanks to that very president’s intervention.

Silent Elections (Belgium & DR Congo 2009). In the streets of Goma, children play at being news correspondents: Congo is preparing for its first democratic elections since 1960. Using a variety of sources, Sarah Vanagt collects elements from personal stories in a region torn apart by hatred and violence. Images and sound recordings taken by the children of Goma, TV news-clips and young soldiers’ accounts serve as her visual and audio material. Silent Elections is a documentary film on the memory and imagination of young Congolese on the eve of potential political change in their country.

Gourdoulou (France 2009)

Made just 37 years after the novel’s publication and eight years after the birth of cinema, the first film adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations. Hepworth cast his wife as the Red Queen, and he himself appears as the Frog Footman. His production secretary May Clark played Alice, and even the family cat and dog got in on the act. The cat played the Cheshire Cat, and the dog would go on to become the first authentic British film star (canine or otherwise) to have his name in the credit of a film when he headlined the pioneering chase film Rescued By Rover in 1905. Although originally running just 12 minutes, Alice in Wonderland was the longest film produced in England at that time and represented a major investment for the pioneering Hepworth Studios. However, despite its historical importance, it was almost lost for good, and just one incomplete print is known to survive.

English Russia, via Laurence Wilse-Samson

via bablegum